


chi·a·ro·scu·ro

by puckity



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Philosophies of Death: A SPN Classic, Seasons: A Supernatural Anthology, The Intimacy Between These Two Eldritch Creatures Is Open To Interpretation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 19:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13981447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puckity/pseuds/puckity
Summary: Billie and her sister have a conversation across The Void.





	chi·a·ro·scu·ro

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [_Seasons: A Supernatural Fan Fiction Anthology_](http://spnshortstories.tumblr.com/)\--it was my absolute honor to be selected for this phenomenal project! I was included in the "Winter" section, and decided to delve into some of the show's philosophies surrounding death and ending via our (my!) two favorite reapers.
> 
> Beta'd by the long-suffering [Rachel](http://betterwithsparkles.tumblr.com/).
> 
> You can also follow me on [Tumblr](http://puckity.tumblr.com/), if you'd like!

Everything was black.

All the shades of black that ever were seeped and swirled around-between-through and Billie would never understand how humans, with their capacity to build gods and monsters out of the molecules of their imaginations, decided that this was the _absence of_.

Across a chasm, one of her sisters stared into the heave of shadows beneath them.

“Do you think it hurts them?” Her sister didn’t look up, didn’t turn towards Billie. “Being here?”

Billie stood with the edges of her essence peaking into the stretch between them. “The Void is without. There’s no pain for them to experience there.”

A slow howl dragged out from the blackness and rolled past them. Her sister shifted with it and Billie could feel the sorrow that breathed out of her.

“They seem so accustomed to pain—so expectant of it.” She met Billie’s gaze, bright against the dark swallow. “Maybe the lack thereof is its own form of suffering.”

Billie looked closely, traced her features and tried to remember a name that matched them. “The Void isn’t meant to be a place of torment. It’s just for the souls that are too restless to go anywhere else.”

Her sister made a cold crackling noise. “I thought restlessness was one of the attributes that made a soul human.”

Billie paused. This conversation was wandering into fields that—as far as her experiences went—left nothing but a bad aftertaste for reapers.

The light behind her sister’s eyes flickered. “How do you choose the Void souls?”

“I don’t.” Billie’s tone was cool, thick-matted with insinuations and truths that they both had been born knowing. “I reap them. Guard them. I just follow orders, the same as you.”

“Then how does _He_ choose them?” Her sister sounded clouded, suddenly choked and Billie couldn’t make out her lines as clearly anymore.

“I don’t know.” Billie took a step forward; there was something solid under her but it made no sound as she moved across it. “He just is, and He just knows.”

“And you never doubt?” Her sister came into focus again, fogging only around her ridges and softening their angles.

Inkiness stretched out and grasped at them, thin and almost translucent, pushing the muggy haze back. Billie felt it flutter like a hitching exhale.

“Why would I doubt? He is finality. Certainty.” Billie could feel her tendrils knot and unknot. “Do _you_ doubt?”

Her sister swayed like she wanted to bridge the chasm but then thought better of it. “He likes me, believes that I do good work. But I was never one of His favorites—not like you are. So maybe I don’t understand Him the way you do.”

A strange itch worked its way into Billie’s folds. She’d never considered herself a Favorite, never thought that her siblings may have believed that she was closer to their Maker than they were. If they had ever asked, she would have told them that reaping souls was a responsibility—a _duty_ —that required her full commitment. She couldn’t get distracted with all the narrow, sightless emotions that humans and their creations lived and died tangled up in. Dying was their right, but death was her realm and it was so much vaster than their fear and joy and pain and wonder. How could they—how could any being except Him—be trusted with navigating it?

“I talk to them sometimes.” Her sister was nearer now. “I know that we’re not supposed to, beyond general placations, but some of them talk _so much_ —so insistently—and it started to feel rude ignoring them.”

The echo of a name finally started to ring in Billie’s ears. “What do they say?”

“Different stories with the same ending. ‘Why now? Why this way? Just a little more time. The world won’t continue spinning the way it needs to if I’m not in it.’” Her sister sighed and the blackness shuddered with her. “And I always told them the same thing: ‘I’m sorry, but it will.’ I believed that— _we_ believe that—but these days…”

“These days what, Tessa?”

Her sister went stiff, jerked towards Billie like she hadn’t expected to be known by her name.

“These days, I doubt.” Tessa hovered and creaked. “They can’t cheat Him, they can’t barter Him down. That’s the rule— _our_ rule—and if they break it the consequences are cosmic. But do you think…do you ever wonder if maybe, once in an eon, He makes a mistake?”

Something icy reached inside Billie and squeezed. “Death doesn’t make mistakes.”

“Then how can He bring two souls to the brink, again and again, without taking them? Two warriors of this apocalypse, but haven’t there been other apocalypses? Aren’t there other warriors?” Tessa went ragged, a frantic swirl in and out of formlessness. “Whether this world ends or not, it doesn’t rest on the souls of two humans. It _can’t_ —but if it doesn’t, then why are they still alive?”

Her essence began to drag, wrapped itself up again. “And if it does, how many worlds have we destroyed—how many possibilities have we reaped?”

Billie shook the chill out of her. “Two human souls are less than a blink of this world. We can’t get caught up in that.”

“He’s met with them, you know.” Tessa floated back towards the chasm. “Paid them personal visits.”

And that, Billie admitted, was odd. Unconventional. Death rarely made house calls, even when emperors and prophets cried out for him. It was curious that two humans could get a direct line.

“They asked me why we won’t fight? Why we won’t help to save this world?” Tessa curled in towards Billie, looping their tendrils loose and soft.

“Championing this world is not our job.” Billie whispered against her sister’s wisps. “It’s not our place.”

“Do you believe that, Billie?” Tessa’s eyes sparked like flint and lightening. “Because I don’t know if I do. Not anymore.”

Billie looked down into the hard edges of her sister being carved out against the darkness. The question wasn’t _if_ she believed. What she—what any of them—believed was irrelevant in the broadest, fullest scheme of things. The question was if a belief, or the _absence of_ , would interfere with the reapers doing their job. If one piece didn’t work then the whole machine ground down, and if one (or _two_ ) exceptions were made then every rule would have the potentiality of being broken. Of being doubted in its finality, in its certainty.

She didn’t believe or disbelieve. It just was, as He was—an end. _The_ end.

“Winchester.” Tessa wormed into Billie’s corners. “Remember that name. One day, they’ll come for you too.”

It already sounded familiar, like it had been etched into their abyss centuries ago. A bitter tingle staked through Billie; it tasted like grace and chaos.

“Don’t worry, Tessa.” She stroked along her sister’s coils; a thick buzzing kicked up from the recesses within her. “They may be able to make a deal with Death, but they won’t get one from me.”

And Billie pulled her sister in tighter, let their essences seep together as the Void pulsed around them.


End file.
